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A new rumor floating around the web today indicates that Apple may have recently purchased FaceShift, a Swiss tech company specializing in real-time markerless facial motion capture. It wouldn’t be Apple’s first purchase in the area of facial motion capture or gesture control, though outside of the new Apple TV, it’s unclear what they might be using it for. While Apple and FaceShift haven’t yet confirmed the buyout, there are some interesting details that seems to point to that being the case....

Apple is reportedly running the largest Apple Pay promotion in China since the service launched there almost 18 months ago. The company is offering discounts of up to 50%, and points rewards of up to 50 times the usual number, for using the service at 28 major retail outlets and 16 online stores. The major push is in response to the greatest challenge faced by Apple Pay in the country …...

Apple’s VP of inclusion and diversity, Denise Young Smith, made an appearance this week at the One Young World Summit in Colombia and caught fire for some of the statements she made. According to TechCrunch, however, the Apple executive has apologized to employees for her choice of words… At the event this week, Smith was explaining how Apple focuses on diversity and commented that there could be 12 white blue-eyed blonde men in a room who are still diverse:...

According to Chipworks, there are actually two different sized A9 processors floating around in the iPhone 6s and 6s plus released last week. That’s not really a surprise because Apple likes to have redundancy, especially when one of the manufacturers is Samsung. We’d heard that both Samsung and TSMC would be producing A9 processors destined for the iPhone 6s. However, there appears to be a difference in size of the two A9s which might play a role in how the iPhone performs…...

Apple today has announced a handful of new marketing tools for App Store developers looking to promote their applications. The launch of the new marketing tools comes ahead of the release of iOS 15 and watchOS 8 on Monday. In a post on its Developer website today, Apple explained that the new marketing tools make it easy for developers to create assets such as banners and images to promote their applications....

A new week is now underway and headlined by 30% in savings on official Apple MagSafe accessory bundles. That’s alongside a $59 discount on AirPods Max and the new iPad mini 2021 with launch day delivery at $40 off. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break. Official Apple MagSafe bundles are now 30% off To celebrate the launch of the all-new iPhone 13, Verizon Wireless is rolling out a series of new all-time lows on official Apple MagSafe charger and case bundles....

Apple Music is right now on Twitter trends, but the reason behind this is not the best. Apple’s streaming platform has been criticized by users due to the “Replay” retrospective feature after Spotify released its Wrapped 2020 retrospective. Last year, Apple introduced Apple Music Replay — a new way to check out the year’s retrospective with the songs and artists you’ve listened to the most. Users can add playlists with their 100 most played songs every year, which are automatically generated by Apple Music....

Apple News is featuring a special ‘Royal Wedding’ tab ahead of the big event tomorrow. Interestingly, the News app has actually changed the name of the second Spotlight tab to highlight the time-sensitive event. Despite international attention, this tab appears to be showing for UK users only at the moment. Devices set to the US region are still seeing the normal Spotlight news items. The Royal Wedding tab is appropriately themed with royal red and gold colors....

Apple has just announced the Apple Watch Series 6 during its September special event. The new generation of Apple Watch keeps the same design as the Series 4 and Series 5 models, but with internal improvements and new finishes — including the addition of an oximeter sensor. Apple Watch Series 6 replaces Apple Watch Series 5 with improvements over last year’s models. This year’s Apple Watch is very similar to previous models, and it’s available in 40mm and 44m with an always-on Retina display....

The survey conducted by MBLM (via Apple World Today) is now available in its “Brand Intimacy COVID Study 2021” and studies emotional connections between customers and brands during the pandemic. According to the study, Apple is the only shared top brand across all ages. Millennials feature three media and entertainment brands out of their top five, whereas those 35-44 and 45-64 have more diverse lists. “Apple continues to dominate and deepen its customer relationships during COVID....

The Apple Store went down last night and updated with a new “We’ll be back soon” logo, but Apple also appears to be testing a new virtual product tour as part of its sales chat feature. Apple has provided the ability to chat with sales support through certain product pages for a long time via an “Ask Now” button. As of today, the feature has a slightly refreshed look, and —as discovered by MacMagazine— Apple is apparently testing a feature on at least the Brazilian store that lets Apple employees share their screen to give a guided tour of the product page....

I wondered soon after the launch of the 2016 MacBook Pro whether Apple might have plans to bring the Touch Bar and Touch ID to a new Magic Keyboard. A new Apple patent application shows that the company is at least exploring the idea. As ever, the language of the patent is dense, but the illustrations include a standalone keyboard as well as a laptop one. As I noted previously, this would seem to address the greatest weakness of the Touch Bar …...

Earlier today Apple released what would quickly be revealed to be an extremely broken update for iOS 8 that resulted in a complete loss of cellular connectivity and Touch ID support on its newest line of iPhones. Now, nearly twelve hours after the update went live, the company has published a new help document for users stranded on the faulty operating system. The document lists the steps for restoring a device back to iOS 8....

One of the new features introduced with the iOS 14.5 beta was the ability to change the default music player used for Siri commands, similar to what’s already available to HomePod users. For some unknown reason, this option was removed from iOS 14.5 beta 2, but Apple has re-enabled it with today’s release of iOS 14.5 beta 3. In addition to letting users set third-party email apps and web browsers as default, iOS 14 included options to change the default player for music, podcasts, and audiobooks on the HomePod....

Apple has released iOS 14.5 beta 6 to developers, coming one week after the release of beta 5. iOS 14.5 packs a variety of new features including the ability to unlock your iPhone using Apple Watch. It’s expected to be released to the public as soon as sometime in April. Today’s update includes major changes to Siri: starting with iOS 14.5 Siri will no longer default to a female voice....

This year marks the first time Apple has offered a public beta for the latest Apple Watch software. Following the watchOS 7 public beta debut last week, Apple has released beta 2 of the public build today. If you’re already enrolled in the watchOS 7 public beta, you can find the update by heading to the Watch app on your iPhone > General > Software Update. Keep checking back if you don’t see beta 2 right away as it’s still rolling out to devices....

Apple is rolling out the sixth watchOS 3.2 beta for developer testing on Apple Watch. watchOS 3.2 beta includes Theater Mode which disables raise-to-wake and mutes alerts. Apple is also introducing SiriKit to Apple Watch with watchOS 3.2 beta. SiriKit lets developers integrate their apps with Siri for select uses. Prior to watchOS 3.2 beta, SiriKit was limited to iOS apps. As for Theater Mode, this is how Apple describes the new feature:...

Alongside the release of iOS 14.5 beta 2 today, Apple is also releasing the second developer beta of watchOS 7.4. This update includes the corresponding watchOS features to unlock your iPhone with your Apple Watch while wearing a mask. To enable the Unlock with Apple Watch feature, open the Settings app on your iPhone, then look for the “Face ID & Passcode” setting. Once you flip this toggle, your Apple Watch will be able to authenticate your iPhone as long as the following conditions are met:...

Apple’s machine learning efforts have been highlighted in the past, but the company’s artificial intelligence director dove deeper during a speech this week. As outlined by Wired, Ruslan Salakhutdinov took the stage to offer a closer look at how Apple is using machine learning… Salakhutdinov’s speech was at a machine learning conference called NIPS, which has been held for the last thirty-one years and has grown exponentially over recent years, attracting 8,000 people this year....

Thanks to the new fourth-generation iPad unveiled this afternoon, the third-generation iPad that launched in the spring has been discontinued. Consequently, the third-generation iPad is now available on Apple’s refurbished store. Prospective customers can find the base 16GB model listed for only $379 in the refurbished store, while the 32GB and 64GB models are also for $469 and $549 (respectively). The new iPad suddenly isn’t new anymore. (via The Verge)...